Thursday, June 21, 2012

"CAIRO: In the late hours of Tuesday evening, foreign media began calling off the hook, asking whether Egypt’s former dictator Hosni Mubarak was dead. What was the situation? How will his death affect the country? A whole gamut of questions were being launched.

The international media, especially the American press, has taken the Mubarak story and run with it, with even one headline attempting to push the idea that Mubarak’s health issues were part of the political tension in the country. How wrong they are, but we should be used to this by now.....

It is a sad reality that American editors appear unreasonably fixated on what they know. Mubarak was in the spotlight for three decades, albeit destroying the country he ruled, but now as he lies on his death bed, there appears to be some nostalgia from American media, many of whom had met the dictator personally.

At the end of the day, Egypt and its people, have more important things to deal with. Fuel shortages, democracy being killed and the future of their country is under threat. Mubarak’s health is not an issue people care much about.

If you don’t agree, think about this: when state TV reported last night that Mubarak’s heart stopped, the cafe I was sitting at did not switch to the news, instead they allowed the England versus Ukraine match to finish. Football trumped Mubarak in Egypt, but not the US."